Longannet power plant to close in March 2016

ScottishPower has announced that its Longannet power plant, Scotland’s last coal-fired power plant, is due to close on 31 March 2016, ending its 46 yr of power production. The company has said that the combination of high carbon taxes and high transmission charging means that the thermal plant is uneconomic.

Neil Clitheroe, CEO of Retail and Generation at ScottishPower, said: “This is a sad day for ScottishPower, and for our highly-skilled and committed team at Longannet. We have explored every potential option to keep the station open, and we still maintain that Longannet could continue generation in to the next decade under the right economic conditions.”

ScottishPower has been working with trade unions, local councils, and the Scottish government and hopes to avoid any compulsory redundancies.

It has also been confirmed that ScottishPower will not be building a gas-fired power plant at Cockenzie, for the same financial reasons. Consequently, Scotland will be left heavily dependent upon SSE’s gas-fired power plant at Peterhead and EDF’s nuclear plant at Torness and Hunterston.

ScottishPower still has major investment plans, with around £8 billion to be spent in Scotland and the wider UK over the next five years, mainly in renewables and networks. This year alone UK investment will be £1.3billion. The company is in advanced stages of development for a new gas power plant adjacent to its existing site at Damhead Creek in Kent and one of the largest offshore windfarms in the world off the coast of East Anglia. In networks, alongside National Grid, a project is underway to install the world's largest subsea high voltage transmission cable between Ayrshire and The Wirral.